Aerial yoga is quickly gaining traction as a therapeutic and accessible yoga option.

Sure, goat yoga is Instagrammable and quirky, but there’s something both beautiful and transformative about hanging from the sky, ensconced in silk, like a butterfly emerging from your cocoon. Enter aerial yoga.

Aerial yoga combines traditional asana (the physical postures of yoga) and yoga philosophies with the aerial arts. Silk fabrics and/or ropes are hung from above to aid practitioners in forming shapes.

The silks can fully support you—even lying down entirely, like in a hammock—or you can wrap them around particular body parts, keeping other parts on the floor.

Hanging fully or suspending individual body parts is believed to create traction and open the body more gently and intuitively than when on the floor. Silks and ropes can also help with balance.

While many aerial yoga classes have an acrobatic element, a growing number of classes and teachers are also using the aerial silks therapeutically.

A combination of the arts and athletics, aerial yoga offers several physical and psychological benefits:

  • Improved flexibility, stability, and balance. A 2019 study observed that aerial athletes have exceptional flexibility, balance, and strength.
  • Reduced risk factors for heart disease. While research on this style of yoga is limited, the most-cited study, conducted in 2016 by the American Council on Exercise (ACE), found a significant reduction in the risk factors associated with cardiovascular heart disease.
  • Low to moderate intensity. The same ACE-commissioned study found that 50 minutes of aerial yoga can burn around 300 calories, making it a form of low—to moderate-intensity exercise.
  • Improved mental health. A small 2019 study noted significant improvements in depression and stress levels when people practiced aerial arts for the love of movement. This seems to bode particularly well for aerial yoga, which applies yogic philosophies and is often less competitive and more accessible than a circus-based or formal acrobatics class.

Prior yoga knowledge is not necessary to get started.

If you have some yoga experience, you may want to start with a beginner-level aerial yoga class or a more restorative-style class. This enables people to get comfortable with moving with the fabric before attempting more complex sequences.

It’s not uncommon to feel a bit of motion sickness from the movement in your first class, especially when coming back upright after hanging upside down.

If you are managing acute or chronic medical conditions, you may want to seek out one-on-one courses or teachers trained in more therapeutic-style aerial yoga.

Tips for beginners

  • Listen to your body. If something doesn’t feel right, take a break or ask for assistance.
  • Communicate. The rope and sling placement can be key during this practice, but only you know how something feels. If something is painful or uncomfortable, ask your teacher to help you find the perfect placement.
  • Go easy. Start slowly as you get used to the movements of aerial yoga.
  • Trust. Trust the contraption, trust your teacher, but most importantly, trust yourself.
  • Have fun. Some of the shapes may feel out of reach at first, especially if you’re brand-new to yoga. You may get tangled, and you may get confused, but if you remember that you’re there to have fun, none of that will matter!

Many styles of yoga are available these days, each with its own unique benefits.

Aerial yoga is not just fun for acrobats—with therapeutic and restorative-style classes, it can be incredibly accessible, too.